


The Hard Questions

by Baroness_Blixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, dad!mulder, mulder baby 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/pseuds/Baroness_Blixen
Summary: Mulder dealing with the fact that his daughter's friends think he's old.





	The Hard Questions

An angry thump announces her arrival. The backpack bangs against the wall and Mulder is up in an instant – she knows she’s not supposed to throw it, or anything else, inside the house. They had to state that rule, as well as every other one, very specifically. Because the youngest Mulder knows her way around the rules.

“Katherine Margaret Mulder, you know that-” The full name treatment is what Scully usually does. Mulder, they all know it, is more or less useless in serious situations. The girl, just about to storm off, stops and stares at him. She has her arms crossed and looks like a tiny version of her mother. Except for the darker, longer hair and his own stubborn chin.

“I have my reasons!” She yells and stomps off into the living room where she plops down on the couch. Mulder follows her, quietly amused. Scully tells him that she’s all him, going off at every chance and at the slightest inconvenience. If she’s like this at eight years, what are they in for once she becomes a teenager? He chuckles; he can’t wait to find out.

“Care to tell me what happened, peanut?” Mulder sits across from her in one of the armchairs they bought a few years ago. Jackson pointedly called them ‘old people furniture’ when he first saw them. That earned him an eyebrow from his mother, but the children still jokingly call them that.

“Daddy, are you old?” Mulder is glad he’s sitting down. That’s one question he didn’t expect. But their daughter is not one to beat around the bush. She talks a lot, always has, and speaks her mind. Always. Another thing Scully tells him she gets from him.

“Am I old?” He asks just to make sure he’s understood her right. Katie nods. 

“The kids at school say you are. They say you and mommy are old. Like grandparents old. What does that mean, dad?” He’s feared this conversation for years and he’s hoped he still had more time. Katie stares at him with her curious eyes. She, unlike him, is not worried; she just wants to understand. A few years back while at the store, another mother referred to him as Katie’s grandfather. When he corrected her, both of them blushing, he felt old. Never in his life had he felt as old as that moment. It passed, was forgotten when Katie, still a toddler then, giggled and squealed. But every once in a while, when someone looks funny at him, when they pause and swallow hard once they find out who he and Scully are, how old they are, he remembers.

In the early days of the pregnancy when uncertainty and fear ruled their days and nights, he and Scully imagined moments like this one. All the what if’s. What if something goes wrong? What if we’re too old to do this? What if we can’t keep up with our child? What if one of us… even now, years later, Mulder doesn’t want to think about it. There was another what if, one he doesn’t want to think of now as he looks at his daughter. What if we’re not going to have the baby? They spoke about it exactly once. It was a Sunday, sunny and friendly. Scully was sick, so very sick with morning sickness, and he uttered the words as he rubbed her back. What if, Scully. They looked at each other then, tears and doubts shared without a single word spoken, knowing that it wasn’t a possibility, not really, not for them. No matter what the circumstances. 

“Daaaad.” Katie’s eyes grow big and impatient; she doesn’t have the time. She can’t wait. Not for dinner, not for her birthday and most of all not for an explanation from her old man. There’s that word again: old.

“It’s complicated, Katie.” She groans and throws herself against the couch cushion. “It really is.” Mulder tells her and puts a hand on her knee. Try again, her eyes seem to say to him, not good enough.

“You do know how old your mother and I are, right?” Katie thinks about it for a moment and he is certain can see her count in her head, then nods. “Do you know how old Josh’s parents are?” The boy is her best friend and Mulder knows that his parents could almost be his children. Almost. Katie shakes her head. “What do you think? Are they as old as I am?” He holds his breath, waiting. Katie furrows her brows, stares him up and down, examines him.

“I don’t know. Josh’s mom is home a lot like you, but that’s because of the baby. Josh’s dad is bad at baseball and soccer.” Mulder suppresses a grin; this is not the moment to make fun. “Is he older than you are, dad?” Katie’s question is genuine, but for the first time he sees the spark of something else in her eyes. Uncertainty, he thinks. He wishes Scully were here. He might be good at baseball and soccer, but right now he feels useless. He’s 64 years old. He can do this.

“No, honey. I’m older than him.” Much older, he thinks, but doesn’t say it. Confusion washes over Katie’s face and she stares at him, still waiting. As the pregnancy progressed, Scully would remind him to take it one day at a time because they didn’t know what might happen tomorrow. But with each passing day, Mulder began to feel more and more thankful. It was a second chance. He watched Scully’s stomach grow and he recorded every little change. He was there for every doctor’s appointment, held her hand through the first sonogram, through the first test results – everything. This time he was there for it all. A bittersweet sensation knowing what he’d missed the first time. When Jackson came back into their lives Scully was four months pregnant. One night Mulder found their son in the living room browsing through a baby catalogue. He looked up sheepishly and Mulder sat next to him, neither of them saying a word for the longest time. 'It’s too late to buy a crib for you, but there’s a bed for you here always. We love you, Jackson, and you’re part of this family.’ That was that. In the end, it was a second chance for all of them.

“So you are old?” Katie reminds him not to get lost in his thoughts and memories, but to be here in the now. He nods. He wishes he wasn’t. Oh, how he wishes Katie had come along ten years earlier. Mulder still dreams that Jackson grew up with them, free from pain and terror, and that Katie was born a few years after her brother. A picture perfect family. He wakes up from that dream, always. Their life, their real life, is good; of course it is. He wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, now. He and Scully are, against all odds, healthy. She makes him have regular check-ups and if he’s reluctant every once in a while, she just gives him a look. She’s right. They have plans in check, financial and otherwise. If anything were to happen to them, Jackson would get custody. All these things loom above them just like heart attacks, arthritis, dementia. He doesn’t want to think about it, wants to just live. For Katie’s sake he has to think about all of it. They’ve been lucky until now. So very, very lucky.

“Does that mean you can’t play baseball with me anymore?” Katie’s voice breaks, sounds impossibly young. Mulder engulfs her in his arms, holds her as tightly as he can. She sobs into his shoulder and he rubs her back soothingly.

“Don’t worry about things like that, Katie. We just played baseball this weekend, didn’t we?” She nods against him and wipes her nose on his shirt. “See? I’m not too old to play.” But he remembers falling asleep watching a movie that night. When it happens to Scully, even after all these years, he just smiles. She’s been falling on asleep on him for 30 years. He’s used to it. His own exhaustion, the little aches and pains, are newer to him, but even they feel familiar now. There will come a day when lifting a bat will cause too much pain. When his throwing arm will give in. He just hopes that it happens once Katie is grown and no longer interested in playing. He knows he will do everything in his power to make it so.

“As long as you can play baseball, dad,” Katie wipes her nose again before she looks at him, “you’re not too old. I’ll tell everyone tomorrow. They got it all wrong.” She assures him and he smiles, thanks her with a kiss on her cheek. It should be him taking the fear off her mind, not the other way around. Mulder opens his mouth, ready to say more, when the front door opens. Katie jumps up, accidently kicks his shin, and runs towards her mother.

“Mommy!” Mulder hears as he rubs his throbbing shin. “Daddy and I were just talking about how old you two are.” He chuckles from his place on the couch. A moment later, Scully’s head pops around the corner and Mulder forgets time and space looking at her. No matter his age, no matter her age, this has never changed; it never will. Right now he doesn’t feel like he’s 64 – and she doesn’t look like she’s 61, ever. When he’s with Scully, he doesn’t feel old. He looks at her and sees his whole life.

“Are you all right?” Scully asks him, amusement swinging in her voice. He nods.

“Katie kicked my shin by accident. I will be fine.”

“Oh, I was so worried for a moment.” Scully says and walks over to him. She leans down to him and kisses his lips softly. “What was that talk all about?” Her voice is softer now, quiet. Katie is in the hall, talking to herself, mumbling about homework. Mulder loves listening to her, but Scully’s gaze is insistent.

“She asked me if I was old. I tried to explain, but… you know.” She nods, seems to understand.

“We knew that might be an issue one day.”

“I thought one day would be much later. Or never.”

“You always want to believe.” He receives another smile, another soft kiss. “How did she take it?” Before he can answer, Katie strolls back in. She’s grinning from ear to ear and crawls into Mulder’s lap.

“Mommy, guess what! Daddy is not too old to play baseball!” She exclaims in a bubbly voice. Scully gives him a serene look; maybe he hasn’t completely screwed this up. She smiles at her daughter, tries to tame a strand of stubborn hair by tucking it behind her ear.

“That’s the most important thing, isn’t it?” Mulder decides that it really is, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr.


End file.
